Justice gets at least one positive bit of justice news this week: the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 went into effect yesterday, bringing the huge disparities in sentencing for powder cocaine vs. crack cocaine somewhat closer to sane levels. According to the NYT, there was previously a 100 to one disparity between the amounts of powder and the amount of crack that would draw equal sentences; now, it's 18 to one. Yeah, that's... somewhat less terrible. U.S. lawmakers truly are beacons of fairness.

Anyhow, a small number of lucky prisoners are seeing their sentences reduced. "Over time, some 12,000 inmates could have their sentences, which average 13 years, shortened by an average of three years." The proper sentence, of course, would be zero years, because drugs were decriminalized and dealt with as the health problem that they are rather than the criminal problem which decades upon decades of the failed "War on Drugs" has forced them to be.

Who even does crack any more? One-pot meth labs are the hot new thing now. Congress must act to radically increase the mandatory sentences for small-time meth cooking in order to make up for the small time crack dealers freed after a mere decade in prison! We don't want those prison bunk beds crammed in prison gyms to deal with prison overcrowding that resulted from insane mandatory sentencing laws to stand momentarily unoccupied!